Google’s Sundar Pichai testifies before the Judicial Committee of the House, as seen via YouTube on a laptop in Washington, DC, on July 29, 2020.
Carolyn Van Houten | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Google is facing a new antitrust lawsuit from a group of Texas-led state attorneys general, this time targeting its advertising technology services.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a video announcing the lawsuit that Google has used its alleged monopoly power to control prices and “participate in market collusions to auction off platforms.”
“Google effectively eliminated its competition and was crowned as head of online advertising,” Paxton said in the video, which could be an allusion to Google’s DoubleClick acquisition in 2007. The full complaint is not yet it had been made public since Wednesday afternoon.
“If the free market were a baseball game, Google would position itself as the pitcher, the batsman and the referee,” Paxton said.
Several Republican-led states are also joining Texas in their new complaint.
The lawsuit follows a separate complaint from the Justice Department alleging that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly on general online search services, cutting off competitors from key distribution channels. Texas, which also joined ten other Republican attorneys general in the DOJ lawsuit, had led a major multistate investigation into Google’s advertising technology business starting last year.
A third antitrust lawsuit against Google is expected as soon as Thursday from another coalition of bipartisan state agencies, Politico reported Tuesday. According to Politico, this lawsuit will also target Google’s search services, but will focus on how its design change has disadvantaged competitors.
This story is unfolding. Please check for updates again.
-CNBC’s Ylan Mui has contributed to this report.
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